Indische Presse zur Skill India Kampagne
Premierminister Narendra Modi gab Mitte Juli den Startschuss für seine Berufsbildungskampagne "Skill India". Die indische Presse äußert sich umfassend über die Skill India Mission. Lesen Sie zwei Beispiele.
Survey: Even among skilled workers joblessness is high
The NDA government has retooled the UPA's skill upgrade plans for
India and announced a more detailed, though slightly less ambitious, programme.
The new target is to get 400 million Indians skilled by 2022. This would plug
the "skills gap", the government feels, and lead to more people getting better
jobs. But, will a better skill set ensure jobs for millions?
The
experience till now has not been very encouraging. Among those who got formal
training in an institution like Industrial Training Institute (ITI) or other
Skill Centers, the unemployment rate was high - at 14.5% - compared to 2.6%
overall, according to a survey by the Labour Bureau in 2014 and released this
year.
In a revealing breakdown of skills and the corresponding rate of
unemployment, the survey found that except for a handful of trades like leather
work, plumbing, motor driving and tour/travel operations, all other categories
of skilled persons exhibited double-digit unemployment figures. Some of these
are shocking: over a quarter of those who had done engineering diplomas other
than in civil and computer related fields were unemployed. Nearly 17% of those
with textile-related training and over 14% with machine operator skills were
without jobs.
Unless new jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector,
are created, imparting skills to millions will not solve the problem, says Jayan
Jose Thomas of IIT Delhi who has researched the Indian employment scenario
extensively. "Existing industry does face a skills gap. That's what
entrepreneurs and industrialists keep telling me. So, imparting skills will help
somewhat. But the primary thing is to have a policy for industrial growth that
will create millions of new, decent job opportunities," he told
TOI.
About 12 million people join the workforce every year in India. But
an analysis of job growth over the past nearly two decades by Thomas, using NSSO
and Census data, shows that on an average, only 5.5 million new jobs have been
added every year in this period.
Labour Bureau data shows that
unemployment rates are higher among those with higher educational
qualifications. While the overall unemployment rate was reported at 2.6% among
the over-15 age population, for postgraduates, it was 8.9%, for graduates 8.7%
and for diploma or certificate holders, 7.4%. Experts believe that this could be
because qualified persons seek better wages and hence may remain unemployed for
a longer period while seeking the best options.
Industrial employers
often prefer to employ workers with no formal training but adequate experience
over say ITI products, again because of wage issues. According to University of
California, Santa Barbara's Aashish Mehta, who has studied the skill gap issue,
the decision is more a commercial one than a skill level issue.
The
average daily wage of an urban diploma holding worker was about Rs 524 for men
and Rs 391 for women according to an NSSO report. Men who have studied up to
senior secondary make 45% more and women 28% more. But compared to graduates,
the diploma holder will get 56% less if male and around 54% less if female. This
gives an indication of how employers will make choices, and may also hint at
families making educational trajectory choices.
Skill India: A catalyst to bridge demand for skilled workforce
India has the largest population of youth compared to any other
country in the world - 65 per cent of our population is below 35 years of age
and we have a decision to make today. Either majority of the youth lead an
aimless life as is the case today or catapult the country into an economic
superpower in the years to come. The current government's Skill India mission is
a catalyst that can give the youth a chance to live with self assurance and
dignity.
This is possible if the government builds on the
positives and re-looks at the weaker side of mission which was launched by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi on the World Youth Day on July, 15.
Let's put the
positives in perspective first. The government has set a credible target of
imparting skill training to 400 million by 2022 through an institutional
framework. It can utilize the training capabilities of over 12000 industrial
training institutes, 3200 polytechnics and various schools and colleges promoted
by PSUs and private sector across the country.
This would meet the demand
for skilled manpower in key identified sectors by 2022 and still leave enough
skilled Indians to work in other parts of the world. Also, having a common
structure in the form of National Skills Qualification Framework means that all
such training will be standardized and will be in sync with international
standards.
Second positive is the realization that skilling alone would
not help. Placement is equally important, both for fresh trainees as well as
existing workers who have undergone training under the mission. This is a
refreshing change as skill-development schemes so far focused on inputs rather
than output of the process, as a result of which trainees were unable to find
jobs in most cases. While the skilling targets in the first few years are in
single millions, subsequent year targets can only be met if the youth sees
result from skilling, which is a better job.
Third, there seems to be the
recognition that jobs for all today do not exist. Hence the stress on promotion
of entrepreneurship to absorb the skilled workforce so developed. It is worth
mentioning here that during 2005-2012, only 2.5 million additional jobs were
created in comparison to 26 million people reaching the working age every year.
That is hardly 10 per cent, which means we need some of the skilled people to
turn into entrepreneurs to create jobs for others. The government would set up
the National Commission on Entrepreneurship for creating entrepreneurs who will
in turn create jobs. The government will also ease the processes of starting a
new business in addition to plugging the gaps in information for a sound
business environment.
All this is good news for the industry as only 4.69
per cent of India's workforce today has received formal skill training, way too
low in comparison with 52 per cent in the USA, 68 per cent in the UK, 75 per
cent in Germany, 80 per cent in Japan and 96 per cent in South Korea. The lack
of skill training has led to creation of an unskilled workforce in many
companies, becoming an obstacle in the economic growth of these companies in
particular and the country in general.
The key to success of Skill India
Mission will lie in solving three crucial points. First is management of
aspirations of millions of youth. In our country mostly everyone wants to do a
desk job while the available opportunities are more outdoors. Second is managing
the parents' aspiration of getting formal education for their children. This has
to be replaced by parents looking to get their children skilled rather than
doing a 3-4 year course with minimal learning.
The final challenge is in
gaining acceptance from corporate. While a lot of corporate will say yes to the
mission, it will be important to see how many fulfill their promise and hire
people with skill certification. If that happens, the mission would have hit a
home run. Nonetheless, it is a fresh start in enhancing the skills of young
India.
Quelle oben: The Times of India, timesofindia.indiatimes.com, 20.07.2015
Quelle unten: The Economic Times, articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com, 20.07.2015